And They're Off - Seed Catalogs Already Arriving

I no sooner put down my trowel and store the lawn mower for the season than the seed catalogs begin arriving in my mailbox. It used to be you'd start getting them around Christmas, or maybe New Year's Day.  It was fun cozying up on the couch with the pile of seed catalogs while a fire crackled in the hearth and the spouse watched the Jets lose a game on a Sunday afternoon.  Now the seed catalogs are vying for space in my mailbox alongside Swiss Colony, Figis, and the usual 1,001 clothing catalogs and office supply catalogs. 

The first two to arrive this week were Vermont Bean Seed (which sells more than bean seeds) and Pinetree Garden seeds. Of the two, Pinetree offers a more intriguing array of seeds. They have specialty sections for growing Italian herbs and vegetables as well as special Asian cuisine vegetables. We've been toying with the idea of growing some herbs and vegetables and trying to sell them through the farmer's market or to local restaurants, and if I ever go through with that plan, I'll turn to a catalog like this for my seeds.

I've got a few things circled already. I know I want to try to grow leeks next year.  Each year I pick several experimental vegetables to try, and 2012 shall be the year of the leek and the year of the asparagus here at Seven Oaks.  We've got a bed already prepared for them, as if they're long awaited house guests. Here's your nice bed of well rotted cow manure and peat - come on down!  I'll bring you a hot toddy of compost tea tonight, okay? 


I know why the seed companies are rushing the season.  But I've barely finished this year's garden, and now they're already enticing me with seeds for 2012!

Because Stories Aren't Stories Until They're Told

I made a bold decision this month regarding my writing, one which I hope I won't regret. I've gotten so frustrated at not finding markets for some of my fiction and essays that I've decided to self publish them.  I've published them on Hub Pages - first my short story, An Ancient Gift, and today, an essay entitled The Fox.

I wrote both stories in the early 1990s. The incident in The Fox actually took place sometime around 1989.  I've lost track of how many anthologies, literary magazines, and whatever I've submitted both works to.  Sometimes I get back notes saying "Nice but not quite us - try again" or "Keep submitting" - and although I know, based on countless books on writing I've read over the years, that these are meant to be encouraging, at this point I'm just discouraged.  Yes, I've had plenty of essays, stories and articles accepted for paid publication, but these two works I felt deep in my heart were good enough to be read by others, but I just couldn't find them a home. 

Elizabeth J. Andrew is a writer whose work I admire, and last night I finished reading her book Swinging on a Garden Gate.  One thing in the book that really struck me was that she wrote that stories aren't stories until they're told - and that sharing our stories is a gift we give others. She was talking about a pile of manuscripts that she'd lost to a fire, and she mourned their loss because now she could never share them with others.  I thought a lot about that last night. It's not as if my works are lost, but aren't they, if they're just sitting on the computer? It's unlikely a new print publication is going to launch and clamor for my type of stories. And I think I've tried every single one in the Writer's Market by now.

I'm tired of having wonderful stories stuck in limbo because there just aren't publications out there these days buying them. Traditional tales, or uplifting essays.  It seems as if every short fiction market these days wants people to write like Hemingway or have some sort of vague, quasi literary ending.  I hate stories like that. I want to be entertained when I read a story. I don't want to have to reach for my dictionary or pretend I am uber-hip because I get the nihilistic meaning of the deep thinking writer who doesn't punctuate properly.  I'm tired of bad art, bad music, and bad writing masquerading as brilliance.

So I have decided to go the way of many...self publishing. I am grateful for the internet.  It's really given control of content back to writers.  Sure, readers have to find your writing, whether you're penning a blog or a book.  But once readers find you, it's up to the READERS whether or not they like you - not one editor making decisions based on profitability.

If you like these works, please leave a comment on their pages on Hub Pages (or here if you prefer). And if you like them, I will share more.

Because a story just isn't a story until it's told...and someone like you is there to read it.

First Sunday of Advent

I'm barely awake and in less than two hours I'll be joining the choir to sing all the new mass translations. We've been practicing for weeks (pretty much since August) but it is still going to be interesting. For those who are not Catholic, I'm referring to the fact that we begin today with a new translation of the Mass; there have been only four times in the history of the church when this has happened, so it is big news.  The congregation's responses and many of the prayers have new words. The Latin remains the same; it's the English translation that is shifting, and hopefully closer to the original meaning.  I think of it as sort of a course correction.  When the first translations came out, they were very modern and lost some of the beauty of the Latin. Now we are moving back to some of the original syntax. Some of it is quite beautiful. Some if it is just a tongue twister.  In any event, it starts today and I'd better wake up soon or I'm going to be stumbling and bumbling, and I'm also supposed to be reading a bit of psalm today too.

In honor of Advent, please enjoy my article on the History, Symbolism and Meaning of the Advent Wreath.

Every time I think about writing this article, I remember an Evangelical Christian family who lived down the block from us when I was growing up.  One day, Mrs. W came by to visit my mother. She was a sweet, kind lady, and I could tell by the consternation on her face that something was wrong.  "What is it, Mrs. W?"

"Oh, my dear," she said, "if you need another purple candle, I can lend you one."

"What are you talking about, Mrs. W?"

"Well, you have those pretty purple candles in that wreath of yours on the dining room table, but one of them is pink.  Shouldn't they all match?"

Nope.  And here's why.

The History, Symbolism and Meaning of the Advent Wreath.

Enjoy!

Now for me to WAKE UP and sing the Lord's praises...loudly...maybe on key today?

Christmas Cactus

If you've nurtured along a Christmas cactus from last year, or you're considering purchasing one to enjoy throughout the holiday season, please read my articles on the care and blooming of these gorgeous holiday plants.

• Caring for Christmas Cactus
• How to Get a Christmas Cactus to Bloom

Phaelanopsis Orchid Still Blooming Two Years Later

Almost two years to the day, and the pink phaelanopsis orchid I purchased in December 2009 continues to bloom without ceasing.  It still has the round hole in the middle of the leaf as if someone used a hole punch on it, but every time one stem finishes blooming, another appears.  I've had it in my bright, south facing office, but it is actually doing better in the cool east-facing plant room on the first floor. I water it once a week and that is it.  Everyone always told me that orchids were fussy, difficult plants. Not this one.  If you look very closely at the photo, you can see the beginning of yet another flower stem appearing under the old one.  I love this flowering houseplant and for a $2 bargain plant from the sale rack at Lowe's, it has been a wonderful houseplant!

I hope your Thanksgiving was great. I spent the day curled up in the living room recliner reading The Help by Kathryn Stockett.  I loved it and recommend it if you are looking for a good novel with very engaging, real characters. I like books like this but they are so hard to find. The last book I read that was similar to this in how I was drawn into the characters was John Irving's A Prayer for Owen Meaney, an older book that I checked out of the library in August.  After reading how the author struggled to get The Help published (I think I read that she received 65 rejections before an acceptance for publication, and she spent over five years working on it) I am feeling bolder about my own literary efforts. I write for a living, but writing sales and marketing copy and informative non fiction is so different from writing fiction and creative non fiction. I want to write a story that makes a difference but I lose heart so easily.  When I read about other authors' struggles, I feel better and not so alone. It makes me realize that writing rarely comes easily for anyone - and that for most of us, writing something of quality takes work.

So today is is back to work, albeit with some breaks in the schedule to finish planting bulbs.  I still have over 100 daffodils left in the garage that must get into the ground over the next week before the ground finally freezes solid. I tackled planting the tulip bulbs yesterday - 50 "Easter Joy" mixed pastels to add to the pink pastel tulips in the backyard planted near the deck (to avoid deer.)  Luckily for us, the weather looks like it will hold out and remain warm and sunny during the day, so I can get out there and get a few more bulbs in each day!

Raz got his sutures out this Wednesday and his infected leg healed up fine. He's very full of himself now that he has gained some weight. He was screaming to get out of his bedroom this morning and go for his daily excursion around the house!  I gave him a green stuffed mouse to play with and boy, he must be a great hunter of real mice.  He really played with that thing until I thought he would pop it the way Shadow does with the stuffed mice. She likes nothing better than stealing the cat toys and giving them one gigantic CHOMP in her massive German shepherd jaws, then dropping the remains of the popped mouse toy in front of the cats as if to say innocently, "What? I was just helping you!"

"Get away from my new toy, dog."

"What? I'm not supposed to pop the cat toys?"

Master Gardener Program

Just a quick note today to share some good news. I received my letter stating that I have been accepted into the Virginia Master Gardener program. I start classes in January, and through May, will be learning all sorts of interesting things. I am very excited and can't wait to share what I am leaning with you!

Broccoli and Cabbage from the Organic Vegetable Garden

We picked the last of the broccoli and cabbage from the organic vegetable garden this past Thursday. Broccoli grown without any chemicals, without any pesticides, and left until after a frost or two has touched it is an incredible taste experience. It's sweet. I know that's hard to believe, especially for you broccoli haters out there (and you're numbers are legion.)  But it's true. Even my husband and his dad, who really don't like broccoli that much, perk up when they see me bring the bowl to the table now.

"Is that garden stuff or store stuff?" they ask me, spoon poised midway between bowl and plate with one lonely floret perched aboard.

"Garden."

"Good."  The spoon dips faster and faster into the bowl, and a big pile of broccoli moves onto the plate.

Organic cabbage, nearly perfect.

The cabbage this year was an interesting experiment. One beautiful head (shown here) is nearly perfect, without insect marks, blemish or issues. It's a tight head of cabbage, crunchy and sweet.  We have red cabbage growing too but it hasn't made a head yet. I don't know much about red cabbage and this is the first year that I am growing it, so I have left it alone.  If it doesn't do anything over the next few weeks I will harvest what we have and cook it to see what it tastes like.

We picked buckets more of turnips, beautiful globes with just the right tint of regal purple near the top like trim on a king's robes, and parsnips, long and gnarly, all resting in buckets in the garage. Since the garage is chillier than the basement right now, we're just storing them there until it gets below freezing consistently.  Then we will move them to the basement area where I've stored the potatoes.

Foreground; carrots and parsnip.  In the background: turnips and second sowing of carrots.

Late harvest: broccoli, cabbage, and a surprise find of dill that self seeded among the parsnips.

This year's gardening experiment were wonderful and helped me learn even more about what to grow.  We're busy planning for next year's vegetable garden. The herbs are going to be dug up and moved out into the unprotected portion of the yard - the space not fenced in.  They're really taking up a valuable garden bed, and we moved the mint without any issue. There's plenty now growing along the edge of the woods at the bottom of the orchard for our needs.  The oregano will meet a similar fate. It also grows like a weed, so come spring I will move the oregano, the remaining catnip plant, the sage and the lemon balm out of the valuable raised bed and into the open area. If the deer nibble it, so be it. 

Next, we hope to add an asparagus bed.  I want an entire bed of asparagus. If I get a pressure canning device, I will continue to grow green beans.  I'm not going to grow the heirloom beans. They really weren't all that wonderful and the production was below expectations.  I will grow sweet potatoes again, and onions and I want to try leeks. I think the asparagus and leeks are going to be my big 'experiments' for 2012, but when the Parks and Burpee catalogs come in a few weeks.....I'll probably be enticed by something else.

To anyone reading this who is thinking about trying to grow organic vegetables - do it.  Don't wait and don't think you have to know everything. One of my pet peeves is that most gardening books make organic gardening seem like something esoteric, something difficult. They make it sound like you have to have a Ph.D. in chemistry and work all day long in the garden to get a single carrot.  Not so! Nature intended plants to grow organically! If you're just growing vegetables for your family, grow them organic. So what if a bug or two nibbles it?  You don't need the vegetables to live on - you're growing them to have fun, to supplement what you buy from the store. So do it.  Don't wait.  Grow your garden in 2012!

Rain drops on red cabbage leaves.  Nature creates beauty wherever I look.

The Snake Poking Stick

Married couples develop their own lexicon which grows into strange forms the longer the couple is married. In our family, we have odd names for tools.  "Thongs" are kitchen tongs, those metal things you use to pull ears of corn from boiling water. My mother-in-law, rest her soul, christened them "thongs" because she couldn't say "tongs." She also couldn't pronounce "pumpkin" so they became "punn kings."  My in-laws also "shut the light" instead of "turn off the lights." If I had known I needed to learn a foreign language to enter this family, I would have asked for a dictionary during our engagement...

I always thought that inventing words was limited to children and an odd thing for adults to do until I realized that John and I are now inventing our own Grunertese, a language purely our own.

Take this small hand-rake.  It's an 80-year old garden tool with a splintery handle.  I wanted to throw it out when we were packing for our big move from New York to Virginia, but there was such a hue and cry that it made its way into the garage-bound box. I'm glad it did.

I didn't know that the old rake, with the handle dissolving into a mass of splinters and shaky, rusty tines is over 80 years old. I also didn't know - but should have realized - how important it was to my husband and father in law.

During the spring and summer, we were busy smoothing and finishing the pathways through the flower garden.  John would say in our unique lexicon, "Get the snake-poking stick" which meant, "Please bring the short-handled rake and the long garden hoe with the tines into the garden; I need to move more flat slates from the pile."  Before moving any of the slates piled on the pallet, one of us would use either the long-handled rake or the short-handled rake and flip the stones over.  Several times, snakes slithered out and into the garden.  Nearly every time, we uncovered plump, shiny, deadly black widow spiders.  It's never a good idea around here to reach into a pile of stones with your bare hands.

So I was frustrated when John kept asking me this fall where the rake was. "Which rake?" I asked, pointing to the rows of rakes neatly hanging from the garage wall. It's fall, after all, and I keep thinking he wants the leaf rake, although raking leaves on a tree farm is like emptying the ocean with a thimble. But maybe he wanted to rake up a bit of the lawn and reseed.

"No, no," he says. "The short rake! The short rake!"

I haven't got a clue what he is referring to. Which short rake? I gesture towards hoes, pointed and flat; garden forks and spades; leaf rakes with large sweeps and short ones; and at last he gives up, stomping away to search the shed.

Weeks pass and every once in a while, he asks me if the short-handled rake has turned up. "No," I keep saying, still uncertain of which tool he's looking for or why it's so important to him.

We decided to take a walk in the flower garden on Monday.  We stopped to admire the wisteria, which we patiently trained to climb the trees at the rear of the garden. Suddenly, John spies something at the back of the garden. "The short handled rake!" he shouts, rescuing it.  The fallen leaves from the bushes have exposed the 80 year old short-handled rake. It's a mess.  The handle has a case of rot and the tines are rusty all over.

"Oh!" I say without thinking. "You mean the snake poking stick!"

He held it in his hands, carefully examining the metal for rust.  Slowly, he began to tell me about Nana and how she weeded her vegetable bed with it. He remembered his father weeding the pachysandra, his mother using it to scratch a few flowers into the dirt beds under the azaleas.  I began to see through his eyes the misty glimmer of the past.  He was right. It wasn't just a rake.  It had a life of its own. It began as a rake, but in Nana's hands, it was a warm sunny day of helping his beloved Grandma. It was a memory of his much-missed mother.  It was a memory of times when his father was young, and no one gave any thought to kneeling on the cold March earth all afternoon to weed pachysandra.

The short-handled rake - aka, the snake poking stick - turned up today on my little bench in the kitchen where I place my gardening gloves and other things that need to move from house to garage, shed or garden.  There it is.  I had to photograph it for you.  The handle has a fresh new coat of hunter green paint, the tines, bright Christmas red.

"There," John said with satisfaction. "Now with all that red, we CAN'T lose it!"

Well, no, we can't lose it.  Because it has moved through 80 years of time into my hands now, creating memories of...poking snakes.

Living with Feline Leukemia

We brought Raz to the veterinary hospital last Thursday, and after discovering his infected leg and thriving ear mite colony ("Want to see the party?" Reinette, the vet assistant quipped. "Really, these guys are having quite the party in there.") she took the requisite blood samples and disappeared into the back of the veterinary hospital to conduct his feline AIDS and feline leukemia tests.  When Dr. M emerged from the back room, she was brisk and to the point.

"There's good news and there's bad news," she said. "The good news is that Raz doesn't have feline AIDS. The bad news is that he tested positive for feline leukemia."

"What?" we quickly exclaimed.  We both looked at each other, very grateful we'd kept little Raz in the garage away from Pierre.  "What does it mean?"

I had always heard that feline leukemia is a death sentence. That even touching or petting a cat with feline leukemia might mean that a healthy cat, if touched or petted afterwards, might contract the disease.

But Dr.M was quick to dispel those rumors.  First of all, Raz was probably in the early stages of the disease. Her best guess is that the bites on his legs were the results of a fight with another cat, probably the one who infected him. Bites, she said, were the number one way to spread feline leukemia.

Our number one concern was for Pierre, however. "What about Pierre?" I kept asking.  "What does this mean? Can we keep Raz?"


It was so confusing!  Dr M thought the two cats, as long as they got along and didn't fight, would be fine together. She gave me some websites and pamphlets. She seemed more concerned with how communicable the ear mites were than with the feline leukemia.  I had no idea what to expect, except that Raz now had a shortened life expectancy.  Four years, maybe more, was her best guess. I kept looking at the scrawny ginger tom and wondering what we'd gotten ourselves in for.

When we got home, a search of the internet turned up all sorts of conflicting information. The only thing Dr M had warned us about was allowing Pierre and Raz to drink from the same bowl or share a food bowl.  She advised us to keep their feed and water, as well as their litter boxes, strictly separate. I put a check mark next to that in my head: can do.  Pierre has his food and litter box in the bathroom connected to my office.  We moved Raz into the spare bedroom along with his box, food and water. Easy enough to keep them separate for the time being.  But why did so many website warn us about not even allowing them to share toys? What about mutual grooming - would that make Pierre sick?  And one website said to keep the cats strictly quarantined at all times and even take your shoes off when you walk into the infected kitty's room,  so as to keep the virus away from the well cat! I couldn't believe the crazy diversity of information online.

Worse, although we'd spent plenty of money having Pierre vaccinated, now I learn that the vaccine isn't 100% effective. Some websites have it at 75% and others at 95% with the chances of it imparting immunity rising the older, the healthier the cat is....and as I look at pudgy Pierre, I see a picture of glowing health.

So what was the story? On Friday and Saturday of last week, Raz slept in his cat bed in the spare bedroom. We went in to visit him and were very strict with allowing him only in two rooms - the bedroom and the office. I worried myself sick the first night we had him here.  Last Thursday, I was up until 1 a.m. worrying about Raz.  Would I have to have him put to sleep now? Would my selfishness in keeping Raz make Pierre sick?

One of the best parts about living in a small town is that you know everyone, and you either run into them at Wal-Mart or church or maybe both in a given week. It's a fact of life; after church or after checking out at Wal Mart, I have run into my neighbors, our veterinarian, our business attorney and our accountant.  The veterinary assistant sings with me in choir and usually sits a few seats away in church. So I asked her before mass if she would mind answering a few questions.

After mass, we talked for at least 15 minutes.  "I'm so confused," I said. "Dr M seemed to think Raz and Pierre could live perfectly fine together, and yet the websites she sent us to [she gave me some she thought might be useful] all made it sound like a grim prognosis and we shouldn't even bother with Raz. I just don't want to put Pierre at risk!"

We talked for a good long while and she helped me sort out all the facts. Basically, they thought it was fine that Raz and Pierre walked on the same floor, across the same carpet, and around the house (Raz is on my desk now, leaning over and watching me type with great interest, while Pierre is downstairs watching television with John.)  As long as the two don't continually share water, food and litter boxes, Pierre should be fine. And even if by some chance Pierre is exposed to the virus, he has been vaccinated, which gives him better than average - much better than average - chance of fighting it off.

Here's the clincher. Raz may actually be able to fight this thing off [he is whacking the computer screen now as I type....apparently my fast typing amuses him....].  If he was recently infected, the best thing we could have done was take him in front the cold, give him food, shelter and a warm bed, and get that infected leg cleaned up.

He may actually be able to neutralize the virus of his own accord.

According to my own research, he has about a 30% chance of neutralizing the virus. About another third of cats infected with this virus live four years or so and then succumb to cancer (hence the name, feline leukemia.) I can live with that.  For those four years, he will be happy. Loved. And alive.

The rest of the cats with this thing get sick very quickly and must be euthanized.

So the question is this: can I live with this? Can I love - knowing that my love might be lost? Can I nurture this creature, all the while knowing my nurturing might be in vain?

I look at him now. He's on my desk, grooming himself.  He is alive. He is warm. He is comfortable. He has friends. Tonight, he ate some of John's pork chop, carefully diced up.  He has gained weight.  The bandage on his leg fell off sometime overnight, and his sutures are clean, dry and no longer oozing and infected. He glows with health. He purrs. He bites my computer monitor.

God answers our prayers in ways unexpected and sublime. For months since this summer, I have followed St. Frances de Sales Instructions for the Devout Life.  I have prayed the Salesian prayer each morning and my 12 step prayer - two prayers awfully potent.  The 12-step:  "Thy will and not mine, O Lord, be done." The Salesian prayer, dating from around 1600 or so: "Let thy will be done today Lord. Let all that is good happen for your glory, and all that is ill make me more conformed to your will" or something akin to that.  And both I have meant.

Last Tuesday evening, a scrawny ginger tom with an infected leg and all sorts of medical needs followed us home.  He made himself known: MEOW.  He demanded love and affection, he needed medical care and food. And he found the home probably best suited for it - three adults, all of us home during the day, more importantly, a home with the room and space to keep an infected kitty away from a non infected one. A sunny, bright, airy bedroom with a door that closes to keep him safe and warm and comfy, and keep the other cat safe too.

Nobody knows for sure what feline leukemia can do...or not do.  One thing that is important for anyone reading this to know is that just because my vet said one thing that does NOT mean it is the right thing for you or anyone else.  Please consult your own veterinarian.  Everyone's case is different.  The virus cannot be transmitted to people or dogs, so we are all fine, as is Shadow. It's just pudgy Pierre I worry about.

I went online over the weekend as we still struggled with whether or not to keep Raz, and if not keep him, what to do with him.  I searched for a shelter for feline leukemia cats and found some in other states, but none in Virginia. Here's why.  The ASPCA estimates that in Virginia, 13 million puppies and kittens are born every year. Of those 13 million, 8 million are euthanized...for no other reason than that they are no homes for them.

I look at Raz. He did not ask to be born.  Someone let his parents breed.  Someone did not spay his mother or neuter his father. Someown thought it was okay to let kittens roam the neighborhood.  He is not neutered right now (he will be in about two weeks.)  If he were on the street now, how many other cats could he infect with feline leukemia? How many kittens would he father if he were left on his own?


I wonder how much poverty has to do with the boom in kittens like Raz, or ignorance.  Believe me, I know how expensive pets can be....I have Raz's initial vet bills to prove how expensive good veterinary care is (and I don't begrudge the wonderful people at our animal hospital one penny, but it is expensive.)  We are stretching ourselves to cover Raz's bills and I'm eying my horse model collection now, thinking of whether or not I will have to sell some of them to cover his veterinary care at some point.

But Raz has made me stretch in other ways. He's opened my eyes.  Not just to the puppy and kitten boom in the state, not just to the pressing need for help for these innocent animals, but also...for people. For the elderly neighbors we stopped by to see if they were missing a cat who were so lonely, so awfully lonely.  I never knew who lived in some of these houses and now I know. I cannot forget them and I won't. God has used Raz to make me aware of a few elderly people on the block who now I tell John I must look after...even just to visit....check in on them....

God used Raz to open the door to love. I need that. I am not very good at reaching out to other people. I have a hard shell around me, brittle, from years of all sorts of crap.  Raz made me reach out, knock on doors, meet people, see the hope in their eyes. I cannot forget some of them.

They need me, too.

God used Raz to melt a little of the brittle shell.

Raz has made me aware already of the gift of love, and how we are all finite creatures.  He is teaching me to love unconditionally.  He is teaching me patience and how to help in matters small....so that maybe, matters great may be affected.

I cannot euthanize him just for being a virus carrier, just because a blood test says he has an incurable virus.  I cannot.  He did not ask to be homeless, he did not ask to be infected. He just asks to be loved.

I can give him that. And I can give him a safe, warm environment to enjoy while he lives, and keep Pierre separate and safe too.  With our good vet's instructions and healthy food and good care, I trust in the future.  And I love.

And that is why I think God put Raz into our lives.

To teach us more about love.

***

Feline leukemia is a controversial subject. Please consult with your pet's veterinarian with any questions.  This blog is not meant to substitute for professional advice, and what I share is my personal opinion. I am not an expert on medical or veterinary facts.   Listen to your veterinarian's advice - and follow it when it comes to your pet's health.

A New Resident at Seven Oaks

This past Tuesday evening, John and I walked Shadow along our country road just before suppertime. Across from our wooded tract is a large cattle operation - hundreds of acres I'm guessing, long, rolling hills of grass dotted with copses of trees. There are no houses for miles except for my neighbor Janelle and three houses on a dead end road as our road bends sharply to the left.  There's a farm lane leading into the cattle field where dogwoods stand sentinel and a gate prevents livestock from becoming more neighborly.  Now this lane is about a mile from our home, give our take.

As we neared the lane, we suddenly heard a very loud cry coming from the farm lane. Shadow immediately began barking at the bushes.  We heard the cry again, only this time it was recognizable

"MEOW!"

My husband walked over to the bushes while I took Shadow to the other side of the road so that the kitty wouldn't be scared. We thought it might be Louie, a black and white cat who lives on the dead end road.  Instead, a scrawny ginger tom marched out from the drainpipe under the bushes, a culvert for water run off. He must have been hiding inside the pipe, which amplified his "meow!" to epic proportions.

"Hello, little fellow," I heard my husband say, and the ginger tom bobbed his hand in a friendly how-do-you do.

I could count every rib on this young fellow's sides, and his ears were crusted with dirt. He limped a little, stumbling with ever few steps and favoring his front right leg. 

"John," I said, "try to get him to follow you home while I walk Shadow the other way."

The scrawny ginger tom marched along behind my husband, fluffy tail held high.  By the we all got home, the orange creamsicle kitty was in the garage and my husband had already given him a handful of Pierre's Friskies.

"What do we do with him?"

The million dollar question. We knew that the houses on either side of us do not have cats - Janelle has a dog, Cindy and Mark on the other side have dogs. We have new neighbors who have a dog and a cat, but I know they have an adult gray tabby. I've seen him on their front porch.  There's one house down the block where an elderly lady is always outside with a dachshund and about a dozen cats of various sizes, shapes and colors following her about, so I thought the orange tom might belong to her.

Since it was going down into the 20s that night and he seemed to be starving, we agreed to keep him in the garage and away from the other animals. John worried silently about rabies while I worried about other cat diseases, and we both forgot all about the potential for fleas.  Thankfully common sense prevailed and the orange tom was given Pierre's extra litter box, a bowl of water and food, and cat bed made from an old cardboard box, a towel, and a cat bed I'd knitted for my first cat.

Two cats had already tested the lovingly hand-knit cat bed and found it disdainful.  My first cat wouldn't even deign to lay on it. Pierre slept on it his first night here, then after that acted like it was foul and refused to go near it.

The orange tom took one look at it, happily kneaded it with his paws, and settled right into his cardboard box bed.

The next day, I brought him around to all the neighbors we could find for as far as we thought this little cat could walk. We looked for lost cat signs, we looked in the newspaper and the radio station's lost and found pets, and nothing - nobody seemed to know where he belonged.

My new friend down the road, the lady who feeds all the cats, said he sounded like one of the strays another neighbor had been feeding.  As I left her house, I saw another ginger - this guy's spitting image and probably the same age - along with two others and a calico.  She said they'd all appeared around the same time.  One had already gotten hit by a car.  The others were being fed by her, but she asked me if I could take another one.

It was the same story at the farms we stopped at.  One man looked at the orange tom in the cat carrier and said, "He's probably been dumped here. Happens all the time."  He and the man working with him who had stopped to talk to us in a field said how they'd found puppies and kittens many times on the farm.  It seems to be rampant. People get kittens and puppies, play with them while they are cute, then dump them on farms in the stupid belief that the animals will somehow "fend for themselves."

Let me tell you what "fend for themselves" means.  The next day, we made an appointment for the tom with our veterinarian. The cat lived in the garage for a few more days out of the elements, eating and resting.  We got him to the vet to discover the gimpy leg was cut badly and infected; he needed antibiotics and sutures.  He needed vaccinations and medications, and he has some medical issues that will be with him his whole life - all of which could have been prevented if he'd been properly cared for and not dumped out on the road.

Do I know for sure he was dumped? No. But he's friendly - super friendly. He's no feral cat.  He's not at all scared to be inside a house. He seems to crave human and canine company, for that matter.

 Shadow fell in love with him.  Orange tom has been named Raz, and Raz will be living in our guest bedroom and acting as our new catly writer in residence with me in the office during the day.  Pierre has been curious about the newcomer but not aggressive.  Given Raz's injured leg, which needs time to heal, and some communicable medical things which also need time away from Pierre, he's going to be separate from the other cat for a while, but it can all be managed.

Raz is happily sitting on the windowsill in my office right now, watching the birds in the orchard trees. He's got stitches in his leg and medicine in his ears.  He's figured out how to open the bag of cat treats in the office (which I now have to hide in the drawer) and he's figured out the sun spots here already.  Shadow, for her part, thinks Raz is her new puppy.  She licks him, cuddles him, plays with him.  When we can let him roam the house (while Pierre is contained elsewhere), Shadow herds him gently along.  Yes, you can herd cats - if you are a German shepherd.

So we have a new resident here at Seven Oaks.  His name is Raz.  His guestimate birthday is February, and he like listening to Rachmaninoff and Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass in my office while I work. He can type "aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa" on the computer, thus proving he is a genius. He is probably going to put me in the poorhouse, but I think I will go broke happily.

Oh, and the first night in the garage before we made him his little warm cardboard box retreat?

I found him curled up on the shelf...wrapped around a statue of St. Francis of Assisi I had taken in for the winter.

It was as if Raz knew he'd found a forever home.

First Harvest of Parsnips

Last night for Sunday dinner, I made a roast chicken and three vegetables from the garden - fresh baked potatoes, broccoli, and parsnips. Parsnips are a new vegetable for my family. Many years ago, I bought some at the store - a small bag, about 1 pound, for $2.99. I made a recipe out of Cooking Light. My family made faces and complained about the bitter taste. I figured that parsnips were one of those vegetables they just didn't like, and to tell you the truth, I didn't much like them either.

A short while after my failed parsnip experiment, I was away on a business trip at a large conference. It was one of those conferences where dinner is served in a hotel ballroom at round tables seating exactly 8 people. Everyone orders the rubber chicken, the burned steak, or the soggy fish, although of course they don't call it that. I ordered the rubber chicken and out it came from the kitchen served with whipped mashed potatoes and parsnips.  The best part of that meal (aside from the chocolate cups filled with vanilla cream as the desert) were the parsnips. The chef had cut them into matchsticks and sauteed them in butter. They were crunchy and sweet, with just a hint of zip.  I fell in love. I could easily have eaten an entire plate of just the parsnips and skipped the bouncy chewy chicken.

Reading about their growth and cultivation, I decided to grow them here at Seven Oaks this past year as part of my annual vegetable gardening experiments. Each year I choose a few new vegetables to try: this year, the experiment include horseradish (still underway), heirloom beans (not worth the effort), potatoes (lots of work but valuable) and parsnips.  Among the experiments, the parsnips were the very last to harvest, but worth the wait.

Parsnips always conjure up a musty image in my mind of a Victorian grandmotherly type in a long gray dress in a dusty house while a Victrola plays somewhere in the background. They really aren't in fashion, are they?  Kind of like the humble turnip, or a cabbage.  Perhaps in the south they are more popular than in the north where I grew up, but they do have that fussy-mussy, old fashioned aura about them.  Which is a shame, because not only do they taste good, they're good for you, and at least for me, they were easy to grow.

First off, parsnips need a long growing season. Depending on the variety, that's over 100 days, sometimes 120 days or more. I planted the seeds in April and haven't touched them since.  Every book and article I have read on growing parsnips states that you must leave them in the ground until the first frost; the frost transforms the root starches into sugars and makes them sweeter.

The first frosts occurred the last week of October, but we haven't had a meal where parsnips seemed like a tasty side dish - until last night.  I made the roast chicken, baked a few garden potatoes, and steamed some fresh garden broccoli as the side dish. Then I pulled out my favorite cookbook out all, the Fanny Farmer Cookbook, which provides how to information to cook all the basic vegetables, along with a few recipes to make them interesting. It was from Fanny Farmer that I learned how to cook beets and make Harvard beets, and once again the cookbook did not disappoint me on the parsnips.  Peeled, sliced, and boiled; then sauteed with butter, salt and pepper. I gave each family member a little spoonful but only told my husband what they were. If I serve him mystery food he gets annoyed with me.

The consensus was that they were delicious, and they were! The consistency was something between a potato and a carrot. The first taste was a bit like a potato too, with an aftertaste like carrots, but with a hint of something spicy there too.

According to my research, parsnips are actually related to carrots.  One thing of interest is that the ancient Greeks and Romans liked them a lot! Supposedly the foliage can exude a chemical that can burn the skin. Since I always garden wearing gloves, that's not a problem, but the books recommend harvesting them carefully while wearing long-sleeved clothing and gloves. 

I looked up parsnips last night and found that they are very good for you; high in fiber, potassium and vitamin C.  Given that they required no cultivation whatsoever, and weren't bothered by a single insect pest, I will probably plant a few again next year. All I did was sow the seeds, thin them out a little,  and nature did the rest.  What can be easier?

Parsnips - one experiment that worked this year!

Beware the Gardening Expert, Because We're All Gardening Experts

Water on cauliflower leaf in my garden

Beware the gardening expert, because in truth, we're all gardening experts - and perpetual learners.

I just finished participating in an interview for Hobby Farms magazine on seed starting. I don't know which, if any, of the information I shared from my personal experience will appear in the magazine. But it felt rather odd to be interviewed for Hobby Farms.  I first subscribed to that publication over a decade ago. I found a copy of the magazine on a newsstand in Penn Station one evening while waiting for my train; of all the places to find a hobby farming magazine, I'd put Penn Station in New York City dead last on the list, but there it was.

Hobby Farms fueled my dreams for owning my own hobby farm someday. Here I am today, being interviewed for the same publication that inspired my own dreams of living in the country. God has a great sense of humor; I always sense loving irony in the universe. I've written personal essays where I've described "my life always comes full circle" and here's another example of that - the magazine that fueled my dream is now asking me to comment so I can fuel others' dreams.  I shake my head in wonder and mingled fear. How did I suddenly become quotable? Does this mean I have to hide the dead plants when the neighbors come to visit?

I think that all gardeners are both experts and perpetual novices. For everything you learn, you discover there are a 100 new things to learn. Gardening is one of those things you just sort of learn by doing. I learn more from my mistakes than anything else. For example, my potato mistake.  I never grew potatoes before; this year, I've harvested not one but two crops.  John dug up another 20 pounds or so this past week.  Although I thought I'd harvested all of them back in July, clearly I missed some little spuds, and they decided they knew better than me and flourished, producing a bumper crop.  I got some tips from my neighbor Mel, who gave me the original batch of seed potatoes, a bag of sulfur, and some advice, but it's really been trial and error.  I have a feeling I'm going to be digging potatoes from that bed for a long time to come. 

The first year I moved to Virginia I read in some 'expert' book that cabbage could be planted in the spring here, so I raced around planting cabbage, broccoli and all the fall crops I knew from Long Island. Talk about a disaster. Well, it was a disaster for me but not for the cabbage moths, who really feasted on the sudden early spring growth of their favorite plant. I think I supplied the whole moth larvae population of south central Virginia with food that year. I remember picking a head of cabbage and dumping it in the sink, only to pick little yellow worms out of it.  Eeew!

This year, I did the smart thing; I talked to neighbors and asked them when they planted their cabbage and broccoli.  I asked one local fellow whose family has farmed these parts since the late 1700s. Now if he doesn't know the answer, nobody will.  He said plant it in the fall.  I've got beautiful heads of cabbage and broccoli ready to eat out in the garden now, and probably some annoyed insects, but tough luck - we'll eat the cabbage, thank you!

No matter what I grow, I'm always growing. Experience teaches us gardening; we garden writers and teachers just transmit the knowledge.

Checklist for Easy Fall Garden Clean Up

I just wrote this article today on Fall Garden Clean Up, providing readers with a checklist of 10 points to cover when they're cleaning up around the garden and preparing the garden for the winter. I'll a little behind this year on my own gardening tasks - we're still weeding, pruning and mulching the fruit orchard trees and planting our annual 300+ daffodils out there. I've started pulling up dead vegetable and annual flowers, and trimming back some of the perennials, but I have a feeling I'm going to be out there working until it snows! The early frost sure took a toll on the garden and got me all off-kilter.

However, I will use my own checklist to make sure I cover the important stuff.

Read the article here:  Fall Garden Clean Up Checklist